Saints v Clyde Preview

Last updated : 16 September 2005 By Stuart Gillespie
Last season, we played Clyde four times and not a single goal was scored in any of those games. Actually, that's not strictly true. John O'Neill scored against Clyde for Saints at Love Street, but it was ruled to be offside. Since last season, Clyde have enjoyed a change in management and are a bit more exciting.

The king of 1-0 wins and 0-0 draws, Billy Reid, has taking his bore a minute tactics to Hamilton, along with most of the squad. An attempt to take Broadwood with him proved less successful. He has been replaced by former Rangers player Graham Roberts, who has had mixed success with non league teams in England. He's got a few teams promoted, but has also been sacked a few times for a variety of strange reasons that I won't go into here.

Roberts got a bit of stick from some fans on the web for acting a bit thick over the summer. To try and rebuild Clyde's squad (they had three players when he arrived), he decided to hold open trial sessions. Fair enough, except he forgot to mention that only professional players were wanted, which resulted in postmen and the like turning up. As a result, some folk have nicknamed Clyde as "Graham Robert's Binmen Army". Hmm.

The trials seemed to unearth a few decent players, but also attracted a few duds, such as former Morton striker Alex Williams and former Saints midfielder Paul McHale. McHale was a ghost when he was with Saints two and a half years ago, but seems to have done not too bad for himself in the past few years. If anyone scores for Clyde tomorrow it'll probably be him due to football's unwritten rules.

Saints are still missing Craig Hinchcliffe, Ryan McCay and Mark Reilly, whilst Brian McGinty could also miss out (stop celebrating at the back). Bell's Player of the Month Kevin McGowne is fit and returns to the squad, although it is likely that Saints boss Gus MacPherson will stick with the team that knocked Stenhousemuir out of the League Challenge Cup in midweek.

Predictions? Well, it's Clyde, and even if they are a bit more exciting, I still think it will end 0-0.